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One of the key acquisitions that Bentley announced at its recent Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference was LEGION for pedestrian simulation. Given that human behavior is far from predictable, how does pedestrian simulation actually work? This article explores the technology in more detail, looking at other applications in the field and delving deeper into LEGION and the science behind it.

This review explores the new features and enhancements in the 2019 version of Allplan, including a new Planes palette which makes it easier to set up and manage the building structure of the project, the ability to create freeform 3D surfaces and use them as reference planes, a new Stair Modeler tool that can be used to create complex stairs more easily and accurately, a brand-new dedicated add-on for parametric bridge design, and several other enhancements for modeling, detailing, and interoperability.

Last week, Bentley held its annual Year in Infrastructure (YII) conference in London, and while the event had a similar format as earlier years—with corporate, technology, and product updates from Bentley in the many infrastructure disciplines it develops software for, and presentations from the finalists vying for the YII 2018 Awards in different project categories—there were so many new developments and updates from Bentley that it was almost impossible to keep them straight. In contrast to previous years where most of the discourse was centered around Bentley’s software, this year’s event had a more visionary tone to it, with the concepts of “digital twins” and “open source” taking center stage. With regard to the software itself, there were acquisitions and integrations galore as well as several brand-new products developed in-house, not to mention a rebranding of many existing solutions.

It has been 10 years since the BIM Handbook was first published, when it emerged as the definitive guide to BIM for both practitioners in the industry as well as students and researchers in academia. Extensively researched and meticulously written by a team of leading researchers and experts in AEC technology, the third edition of the book has just been released. Coming seven years after the second edition, this review explores how the new edition of the book captures all of the many developments in the world of BIM that have emerged in the intervening years.

Innovation remains not just alive and well in the AEC technology industry but is continuing to grow at an increasing pace, as evidenced in this year’s collection of technology updates. We have new releases of several popular applications including Vectorworks, IDEA, dRofus, IESVE, SDS/2, and Twinmotion; new integrations such as IrisVR with Navisworks and Transoft with Vectorworks, which extend their capabilities and make them more powerful; and a host of new solutions in various fields including Overtur from Allegion, BSD Speclink Cloud, BIM & Scan AutoCorr, bim.aero, and BIMserver.center from CYPE Software. Collectively, they span a wide range of disciplines and processes in AEC including BIM, analysis, visualization, objects and specifications, data management, collaboration, laser scanning, and infrastructure design.

Waffle structures are used in several design fields including architecture to construct complex, organic forms. In this Tips and Tricks article, Mark Loomis, Principal at MP Studio, who is keenly interested in 3D modeling, parametric modeling and generative design shows how to use a Grasshopper script to model a waffle structure, using its algorithmic design capabilities to automate the process and allow parameters such as the spacing and the width of the ribs of the structure to be adjusted just by moving a number slider.

This article captures the latest updates on automated code compliance in the AEC industry, with new commercial and research efforts as well as some exploratory efforts in governments to determine how it could be applied to streamline the approvals process by regulatory agencies.

This article discusses the divisive architectural style of New Brutalism, which was developed in European cities in the 1950s and 60s, and asks whether or not our current planning capabilities would have, had they been available at that time, prevented its rise. Had governments and their architects had the capability to use 3D CAD (computer-aided design) or BIM (building information modeling), would they have invented a different, perhaps more indulgent sort of style for the postwar period? Or, was New Brutalism itself a creative choice rather than a utilitarian one, a conscious, definitive break with European architectural style and tradition of the past in the wake of a destructive European war?

In this Viewpoint article, Andy Knauf, Chief Information Officer of the architectural-engineering Mead & Hunt, describes how the use of a cloud-native virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution helped his firm meet its aggressive growth target by allowing its architects, engineers, designers, as well as the technical teams that support them, to collaborate at cloud scale and speed, in real time, from anywhere in the world.

As with each new release of ARCHICAD, the new version that was released a few weeks ago also revolves around a theme named after a breakthrough improvement. For ARCHICAD 22, the theme is “BIM Inside and Out.” The “inside” in this case refers to the many enhancements for modeling and managing the information within the BIM model, while the “out” refers to the dramatic improvements in the Curtain Wall tool which greatly speed up and simplify the design of building façades, whether they are composed of straight lines or irregular shapes.

These two key features are explored in more detail in this review, along with the many additional improvements related to productivity, workflow, and performance in ARCHICAD 22.